But I will.
You will always encounter impediments to your writing. You will regularly want to procrastinate. You will often want to distract yourself. You will sometimes even want to quit writing altogether.
This is normal. This is the work. If it was easy, everyone would be great writers with dozens of books to their names. But of course, it's not easy. You will do it anyway.
Photo by Cristina L.F.
Your Characters Don't Want To Either
Your characters feel the same way, by the way. They will want to avoid the conflict you set before them. They will want to flee from the pain you put them through. They will want to quit the quest you have them on.
You and your characters are both people, and people always want the easy way out.
Don't take the easy way out. Don't let your characters do it either. Great stories are about struggle, and you must endure struggle of your own to create great stories.
In The Midst of Struggle, Decide to Savor
Yesterday afternoon, I sat outside a coffee shop under the tallest pine in Santa Barbara. It was nearly dusk and the light came over the trees golden. I read Le Petit Prince to my son in French (badly) and drank my coffee until he got too squirmy and we went for a walk in the quiet evening streets.
It's been a busy week. We've been traveling. I have a lot of work at the moment. I'm struggling to handle it all.
But the struggle made this moment sweeter. In the table beside me they were talking about poetry. The coffee was strong and warm. My son smiled at the woman sitting across from us and later, on the walk home, he fell asleep in the stroller, his cheeks puffed out like balloons.
There will be struggles, in your writing, in your life, but take the time to savor these in-between moments. They make it all worth it.
How about you? What do you do when you don't want to write?
PRACTICE
Your character doesn't want to continue. Write about his or her struggle for fifteen minutes. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to leave feedback on a few practices by your fellow writers.
I don’t really ever feel like I don’t want to write, but when the moment does come, I simply sit back and wait until the desire hits again. It’s only when I’m driven by inspiration and passion that I feel I can write. Is that a bad thing?
I’m the opposite. When I’m reluctant to tackle a blank page I always surprise myself with what comes out. If I have this urge to write I find I’ve got nothing to say. Strange, isn’t it?
That is strange. I get a measure of both results. Sometimes if I tackle the reluctance, I get good stuff. Other times, if chase the urge to write, it could come out either way.
Must be nice to feel like writing all the time! You’ve got gusto, kid, and no, that is most certainly not a bad thing. 🙂
I think everyone has different experiences with writing. There is not wrong way to write about eating a Reeses.
Great post. I love the bit about how our characters don’t want us to write either. I procrastinated for months before finally writing a scene in which a beloved character meets a grisly end. To me, the solution is simple: write anyway. Find a way. If you can’t work on your manuscript, write something related to your manuscript. Just keep writing, and the words will keep coming.
One of my favorite lines ever is Dorie, from Finding Nemo, when she sings, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. . .”
Just keep writing, just keep writing. . . 😉
Great advice from an awesome fish!
Thanks! Sometimes all I need do is show up for my manuscript, shake hands, and write, even if it’s messy.
Indeed! Sometimes I come up with my best stuff when I don’t think I have anything to say!
I don’t think I made the connection that our characters don’t want us to write, but that’s brilliant. I just meant that our characters struggle, just as we do, but I like your connection. Thanks Ann. 🙂
You’re right, Joe! I totally inserted that myself without realizing it. Thanks for the great post!
Great advice — I can testify it works!
It really does! 🙂
Write anyway.
Never stop yourself from writing something stupid.
Never stop yourself from correcting something stupid.
<3 Exactly, James.
Most people don’t know what it’s like to have to kill for a living. Most people don’t know what it takes to wrap your hands around a life and watch it slip away like grains of sand between your fingers. I am not most people. But this doesn’t mean I enjoy it. The fact is, I hate it. And I hate myself for doing it. I should just give up, raise my hands in surrender and let someone else take my life away for a change. The muffled voices of the excited crowd ring inside my ears. I wish they would shut up, or simply understand their acclamation for what it really is. A call to spill the blood of another. A call to murder. (Thirteen – Markram Battles)
What a first line, Melissa.
Haha, thanks Joe. I wanted to go for something dramatic that would spark the reader’s interest right away. Apparently, it worked 🙂
Wow!! I think the whole paragraph’s great. It ties in expertly to the universal fascination/revulsion with the idea of killing.
Thank you, John 🙂
This was a really great passage.
Thanks 🙂
As Royal Air Maroc began its descent, Tina fastened her seatbelt. She was excited, a little cautious, but truly excited. This would be the most extreme exploration she had ever undertaken. She needed to find connections with people, cultures, vapors of knowledge left behind by those that preceded her; something that made sense and verified her connection to this world.
Tina was born at a time and place chosen by a mother who lived in a world of
fantasy and a father who was a mirage. He disappeared like a vapor whenever she thought she could catch him. She found it interesting that this journey would take her to the Sahara and the mirages she was yet to discover.
She recalled coming into a world filled with chaos, betrayal and all the fear that could be hurled at a child… and yet here she was; looking for enlightment and connections wherever she could find them—including this place, so different from anything she had ever known. She felt immediately connected.
The truth was that she had survived. Survived the cosmic collision of a self-
centered man and a mentally deranged woman. A cataclysmic explosion
heard only by her and keeping her silent most of her life.
Her mother’s beauty and high-spiritedness invoked desire in men’s hearts while her father’s masculinity was the hype of what defines the “machista” prototype: a sub-culture which demands that men show no emotion while regarding women as objects for fulfilling their own desires. Strong on the outside, but in the end, weak of flesh and mind. Could it be why she felt at home in Morocco?
You pretty much nailed those stereotypes. I hate to call them stereotypes.
Thanks, Karl. Stereotypes are just that, unfortunately, there are still people who conform to such images, and the father-image in this story is one of them. Thanks again for your comment.
Agree with Karl that you nail the stereotypes, but you also give serious indication of attempting to look behind the stereotypes to understand the human beings beyond previous impressions. This is the start of a great story!
Thanks for your feedback, John. Your interpretation is what I tried to convey in this vignette. That is what the character is struggling with in her life at that moment. Thanks again.
Loved the details in this piece, Claire. This reads deeply of the character and her parents, and introduces her struggles immediately.
James, thanks so much for your comment. Glad to know that you captured what I was trying to portray. Thanks again.
I don’t want to continue. My insecurity is growing by the second. If I don’t get to where I want to be, I should die. I cannot fail. I have to succeed. I know that I have to get to where I want to be, but that is still incredibly painstaking and difficult. I know that I have to try and do my best regardless of where I can succeed or not. No! What will people think of me since I have already shown my plan of action. If I did not get to where I want to be, will forever be doomed as a failure? I know that I have to create a miracle for all of this. I hope that one day, I can create something out of nothing. Oh no, I will probably die from this insecurity. I can’t help it but persevere endlessly. I must, I have no choice. Wait, I do have a choice. I can give up and walk away. Now that would be great. But giving up is for failures. I am not one. I have to continue. What makes a person is his perseverance during times he does not want to do something. I see now. I understand now. I will persevere until I get to where I want to be. I know that my life will become instantly awesome when I achieve that means. I hope to be forever in that state of mind. No way would i ever be going to this place in any way. I will triumph forever. I will be the best forever. Okay. I have talked myself into it. Now I need to just do it without restraint. I can do this. I know I can. I will do this until the day begins. I must do it now and stop thinking. Otherwise the momentum I have developed will be down to nothing. I will win!
You will win! “The momentum I have developed will be down to nothing.”
I know that feeling. It’s tough. But you nailed it when you said “I must do it now and stop thinking.”
I found your text very alive with all the ‘No!’ and ‘Wait!’ and ‘Oh no’ and ‘Okay’ and all the roller-coaster thoughts crossing the narrator’s mind.
Sometimes, Joe, if I don’t want to write, I don’t write. 🙁
Lately, though, and this has been working, I’ve had a set time to write in the morning and I do it. I put the headphones in, open the document, push play and GO!
But often the fear of not knowing what to write next overcomes me. Every time I finish a session, and I’m proud of the work I did, I am overcome with a feeling of dread. “What if I can’t do this tomorrow?” Sometimes that feeling gets blown away with a good session the next morning. But sometimes the next morning I sit and look at the screen and I say, “See, I knew it. I can’t do it again.”
Luckily, today wasn’t one of those days. I visited your blog and I thought, “See, this is normal after all.” I didn’t get to it right away. I needed some imagination time so I went for a walk. I came back thinking, “My character doesn’t want to do this, either.” But, together, Elias and I overcame that.
Thanks so much! I wrote for about an hour, but I will copy-paste what I estimate to be about fifteen minutes’ worth.
~ ~ ~
Through the tree trunks he saw blue jumpsuits, three or four, getting closer. He climbed the closest pine, shimmied up to a safe distance. Beneath him he watched two men chasing another. The latter was shouting, pleading, “No, no,”
casting glances backward. This was a mistake, for he tripped over his own feet and the two men were upon him.
Large in stature, bearded faces, they pummeled him. Elias was close enough to make out a tattoo on the side of one of their faces, but far enough not to see what it was. He was close enough to see them pounding the smaller man’s face, but far enough not to see the blood. He was close enough to hear one of their feet thumping into the man’s ribs. He was close enough to hear it crack. They beat him until he stopped moving and stood over him. They seemed to be eyeing each other, like an old western quick draw.
From out of sight Nestor jumped into view, weilding a jagged branch like a battering ram. He took them by surprise—no sooner did one of them turn around did Nestor thrust his branch forward and impaled them both through the stomach like blue jumpsuit shishkabob.
This blood he was close enough to see. Around the wounds dark stains formed and the men stood, bound together, for an impossible length of time. He heard gurgling. Nestor stood before them, his stance like a green army man Elias played with as a boy. Legs spread, he jerked the branch around. Still the men stood, until Nestor let go his end and shouldered them to the ground.
He couldn’t believe Nestor bore the strength it would take to penetrate two human bodies, but there he was.
In his mouth he tasted bile. For fear of vomiting downward and revealing his hiding place, Elias looked up to the sky and tried to hold it in, to no avail, and his stomach lurched and the hot insides of his stomach bubbled from his lips and he let it fill his mouth so as not to let it fall to the ground, and it oozed like lava down his cheeks, his neck, into his clothes. He swallowed as much as he
could.
Karl, I really identify with the dread and self-doubt after a good writing session, “Can I do this again tomorrow?” and “See, I knew it . . . ”
Your post is excellent action/adventure/suspense thriller! I was like, omg, at the man’s predicament with his regurgitation. Good stuff!
Those times when I don’t want to write I listen to music or read a book or write anyways or go for a hike or meditate or find someone to laugh with, anything to distract myself back into writing. Usually, when I don’t want to write I’m too serious about something in my life, which clouds my writing by making it a burden, something to be endured. Writing is truly my open door, my breath of fresh air, my connection to me and to all of you, and it is always in my best interest to revel in it rather than push it away. Thanks for letting me participate.
“…distract myself back into writing.” I like how this line surprised me. Nice concept.
I so strongly agree with everything you write here; hiking is very good for shaking loose from whatever it is I’m being too serious about. This just resonates with me and I thank you for expressing it!
I totally agree with everything you said here as well. Often, something in my life can be distracting and making writing a burden as well. But sometimes, all we can do is identify road blocks and emotions, and write them off our chest sometimes.
“Humpf!” Kyle plopped down in the worn but comfortable chair. Coat and shoes still on. Dropped his brief case by the chair. And sat. Oblivious to everything even though nothing was going on. He breathed in the silence, deeply, through his nose. Exhaled slowly, silently, closed his eyes, laid back his head.
“Work was hell today” he thought. Already dreading tomorrow as it would be more of the same. “Why do I keep putting my self through this?” But the silence won him over, it was soothing. He let his thoughts drift into the vacancy of the quiet. The absence of commotion a warm balm oozing around his brain. Ahhhh … quiet … nothing. Kyle sat.
Suddenly, through the mist of the silence “Klomp! Klomp! Klomp!” Quick footsteps on the porch stairs. The front door flies open. “Dad’s home!” hollers his seven year son as he runs into the den and excitedly hops into his dad’s lap. His son’s knee just grazing the upper-most reaches of his thigh, “who-o-o, o-ouch, hu-u-u” he exhales as the dull throb hangs around his lower abdomen. Kyle gives his son a dad-bear hug, and manages a grimace-laced smile as his wife walks in carrying their three year old daughter.
“How was your day dear?” she asked as she put Sarah down. Sarah toddled over to her daddy and hugged his leg.
“Fine, honey … now.”
“I’ll manage tomorrow” he thought. Smiling to himself as his wife gently kissed his cheek …
Excellent! I was right there with this man throughout, and the dull throb around the lower abdomen was a very clever description of that pain you have to be a guy to really know about — in this case administered by a child with no thought but to love on his father. Excellent writing!
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m kind of just getting “wet-behind -the-ears” at this.
“who-o-o, o-ouch, hu-u-u”, made me smile 🙂
I like that Kyle has a great reason (his family) not to give up… and sees it.
Yeah, sometimes family is all that keeps you going. Thanks.
John nailed the description of my thoughts on this on. I felt the characters were instantly recognizable in their family unit. Would instantly want to know more about these characters.
Watch your consistent between past and present tense.
Thanks for this, Joe! It was something I REALLY needed to hear this morning after a couple of days trying to get back on track. I guess it could’ve been written just for me.
Thanks.
Glad it connected with you, Mike. I love it when that happens.
You write the lines of their emotions and do not let it set you too far. That’s how I wrote my book. I do not have to think too much. It’s come to me when I least expected
Yes, perhaps we think too much about it.
Thinking too much gets in my way, often making me prune away all my ideas in making sure that some event fits in. If I just start writing, most of the time, the ideas can always be molded to fit the story.
His neighbor approached in the courtyard and smiled broadly. “I heard ya playin’ your guitar the other day.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re good . . . ” the trailing off hints at something left unsaid.
“Well, thanks. I wan’t playin’ too loud, was I?”
“Oh no no no . . . ” Again with the wide smile. “It’s just . . . that music you play isn’t of God, y’know-wha’m-sayin’. It’s of — the other fella. A man oughta use his talents to serve the Lord.” The wide eyes widen further. “Say, would you like to come hear the Word with me this Sunday . . .?”
His mind quickly reels over the memories — worship services dream-like in his four-year-old innocence, the musical education by osmosis, the hell-fire-and-brimstone over the first two decades of his life, the final break for freedom complete with angry scene with father.
I’ve really come a long way, he told himself. He gazed at his neighbor for a moment, turned and went inside, to bed, and pulled the covers over his head.
Loved how the accent never failed, ” y’know-wha’m-sayin’ ” ?
It really gives a voice to the characters.
Ah, and the blankets over the head, the ultimate weapon when refusing to carry on!
… Can be a weapon turned against oneself. That’s why it’s so important at some point to stop bein’ a baby.
I’m apparently getting better at dialog. Thank you so much for your feedback!
“Sounds like good devil music.”
“That’s nice… Thanks?” What a jerk….
That was my interpretation of this short excerpt. I love your excerpts about music and guitar.
Thank you, sir!
Yeah, that conversation’s been going on since at least the 1920’s. Jazz is tha devil’s music. Ditto Blues, Swing, Rock’n’Roll, Country . . . .
The nay-saying can provide more determination if you use it that way . . . positive motivation.
Yes, the dialogue is written well. Good job on the whole. Could I offer you one bit of advice that I picked up along the way, to further enhance your dialogue? Get rid of the “yeahs” and the “wells” and the “all right, thens”–our dialogue doesn’t have to be life-like, in fact, our characters SHOULD be smarter, they SHOULD be wittier and quicker in response time. That makes them more interesting to us, because they are smarter than us.
You have a point, Karl, but to me it depends on which characters one is depicting, and in what light. These are two Southern-U.S. males, one white, one African-American, and speech patterns are generally slower in the south (altho less so nowadays with all the cross-migrating). Part of the characterization is slower speech that can mask a quick wit from the casual observer (true of many southerners). Because of this, I do value life-likeness of dialog. But I agree that too many “yeahs” and “wells” will not read well, and I need to watch out for the line between “colorful” and “extraneous”!
If you still disagree, feel free to answer back.
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback!
Nice practice. Written well, I like it a lot. The dialogue is composed beautifully. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was born in Kentucky or the way you wrote, but I read this all in a southern accent right away, which I understand is the effect you are going for. Again, great piece.
Thank you very much, Benjamin! Southern accent, absolutely, and speech mannerisms across the American south are quite similar to the ear, though that of each state has unique qualities. I just love writing dialog like this, in an idiom I have heard since infancy. I really appreciate the encouragement.
Did you post a practice here? I’ll look for it now . . . .
Yes, sir. It’s about 4-5 down from yours.
Throwing the veil on a distant chair, Hillary had a peek through the slit in the door. “Oh crap, Cal… Everybody’s there.”
Cal skirted the sofa to take the veil. “Of course. You invited them.”
“No! He did. Obviously. Why would I want so many people to attend my wedding? It’s crazy. He’s crazy. I can’t marry a crazy man. Stop me!”
“Oh God, don’t tell me you’re backing off? Not now?”
The bride stumbled in her puffy dress when she turned to look at Cal. “Yes, exactly. I’m backing all the way off, I don’t want to do it.”
Cal suddenly noticed her friend’s groggy eyes. “Are you drunk?”
“Why, yes! Isn’t it the norm on the big day?”
“You watch too many movies. Damn it, Hill!”
“I don’t care, just get me out of here before I freak out!”
“You’re already freaking out!”
Tears spread dark mascara on Hillary’s pale face. Cal stared at her with narrow eyes, her arms crossed on her tight, yellow dress. She calmed her voice before she spoke. “I’m trying to figure out if by doing so, it would make me a very good friend or a very bad one.”
“Good. Trust me, a great friend. The best. Ever.” Hillary spanned the room to seize her bridesmaid’s face in her cold hands. “Cal, I beg you to run away with me.”
Cal’s eyes gleamed at the heaviness of this request. They settled on Hillary’s blue earrings, the ones she’d lent her, as Hill tried to keep her lips from quivering. A desperate sob was on the way. Cal needed to take a decision.
Three knocks on the door. Hillary’s father. “Can I come in? They’re ready, Hilly.”
The dialog in this is right-on-true to how two close friends would be with each other in a situation like this. The cold hands are a great touch — they make the bride’s fear palpable. And your last line, the father knocking, brings it all to a head. Great work!
I’m glad to hear it makes ‘wonder’, thank you so much!
This is an interesting passage with details and an immediately discernible conflict. I agree with John, I wonder what the groom is like. Or perhaps the bride really gets worked up about these things.
I, too, have been traveling. My writing has slowed for the past four weeks as I near the end of “Act 2”. Since this is where a major event occurs, it has made the “in-between” moments very hard to write. But I’ve finally passed that point and the plot ball is now rolling. I shopped ALL DAY Friday with my family. Hours and hours at the farm show and hours at the mall. There were some nice things happened. Got a nice hotel room. Jacuzzi, and a pina colada to help ease down the day. Wrote little.
Today, literally between in-car writing and deciding to bring my journal with me while shopping, I made my breakthrough. My sample first perfectly, and this prompt helped me add additional conflict elements to the passage.
———————————————————-
Despite all his efforts, Dayotan could not find sleep. Finally, he gave up. Perhaps a walk would help. If nothing else, he could practice his sword lessons.
He decided against wearing his leather shoes, for the morning dew would soggy them. Picking up his belt, he looped it about him and secured it quietly. He slipped from the room, creeping barefoot down the creaky and spiraling stairs of the inn. He slipped through the tavern and out the door.
Once outside, he drew a deep breath of the cool night air. Within the guard tower, which stood at the south edge of town, paced a guardsman, watching the southern border of the city. As Dayotan turned to the east, he spotted an eerie moon gazing over the land: full and mysterious. Not a sound was made by anything, not by a villager, critter, or animal. Not the lowing of cattle nor a chirping of crickets. A strange silence had strangled all sound from the country side.
The cool grass wetted his feet as he walked along the eastern side of the building. He moved north, away from the light of the inn’s torch-bearing brazier post. He drew his wooden practicing sword and began to practice several of Greybo’s lessons, starting with sure footing and escalating to parrying. If only I can master my sword, perhaps I could keep them safe. He practiced his thrust attacks next.
When the unbreakable silence was shattered by a horrendous howl, Dayotan spun on his heels. The howl sounded distant, but within the city borders. He sheathed his wooded practice sword and walked around the inn to the western corner. He could see little in the darkness, for here he had not even the light from the inn’s brazier. ‘Twas nothing more than a coyote or a wolf… Perhaps. But, he knew he had never heard a howl quite the same before. Then, he heard a scream echo through the disturbed air of the restless night. He ran towards the terrifying scream. As he ran through the darkness, he knew that sleep would never come this night.
He had nearly closed the distance from where the shrieks had come when another scream rang out. As cold dew from the dimly-lit grass licked his feet and ankles faster and faster, his heart sunk when he saw from whence the screams had come: Qui’k’s house.
He swallowed a dryness that stuck in his throat as he sprinted toward the house. His body pulsed with a strange numbness and all he could hear—all he could feel—was the throbbing of his heart beating wildly—strained by the frantic run and leaping at the thought that Qui’k was not safe.
Yet as he reached the door of the house, he felt no numbness or callousness of the heart could prepare him for what lie on the other side, when he crossed the broken threshold. The door stood barely open, but bore abysmal damage to its side. The fear of knowing his little friend dead was greater than the fear of dying himself.
The sound of shattering glass broke his hesitation. He pushed the door open, and entered. He noticed an overturned lantern and a sword nearby. Even before he stood up the burning lantern that lay toppled over on the floor, along with a broken table and two toppled chairs, he could see a profuse amount of blood streaked across the floor towards the further rooms. He squeezed the lantern handle and drew his real sword. He inched towards the hallway.
With sword drawn, he crept down the hallway as quickly as the telltale creaks of the wooden floor would allow. He shivered, but could not tell whether from the cold outside breeze that whisked itself over him from out the broken window at the dead end of the hallway or from the sheer terror that held his heart as he took step after step over the fresh blood still warm on his feet.
His body was tense, shaking horribly. It was ready to flee, at a moment’s notice. But the child and his mother were in here. He didn’t want to see their mangled bodies, but he could not abandon them to become corpses if they were not already. He had to press on; he had to try. He couldn’t leave himself reason to blame their deaths on his own failure.
The blood did not trail to the broken window, instead turning sharp to the left through a doorway. As he neared, he found the door split in half, with blood splattered all over it. Upon the floor, he saw a crumpled and mutilated body. It was nigh indiscernible, but Dayotan guessed the blood-covered body to be Qui’k’s father. He felt the desire to feel for a pulse, out of utter hope, but he knew such hopes were false. Most of the middle-aged man’s face had been torn off. He was dead.
He hesitated to put his bare feet anywhere near the blood puddle surrounding the corpse, but again, his hope was stronger than his will. Darkness haunted the room, until the light from the lantern banished it to the corners of the room. He was standing in a pool of death; his bare feet covered in more slick and slimy blood.
Deep scrapes, distinguishable by the light-colored wood and splinters protruding from the floor, streaked across the wood from the left side of the room to the right, where lay an overturned bed. The posts of the bed, only, could have made those marks.
He heard more glass shatter behind him, and quickly leapt aside from the doorframe. For a moment, all he could hear was his heart thumping in his ear. ‘Twas only a shard of glass falling, he told himself, but his sudden motion had brought his attention to the dark corner on the left side of the room, where new splotches of blood had begun and were separated from the other pool by several paces. Another corpse! No… Qui’k…
He saw motion from the same corner and heard something shifting there. He drew his sword into his trained position. Qui’k’s father was a trained guardsman; I’m just a farmhand. Roland’s sword had lain in the main room of the house: unsoiled. It didn’t bear one strike. He knew he stood no chance, but he had to know that Qui’k, the little eight-year-old boy whom he had grown to cherish as his closest friend, was for surely dead.
“W-w-who goes there?” His voice came out in a choke. No answer came. He offered his lantern at full length, and stepped forward.
Wow! This is good, the suspense of sensing an unseen foe near at hand, together with fear for the life of his friends, especially Qui’k, charges this passage with adrenaline.
This work has the feel of a former time centuries remote from our world, and accordingly the dialog, inner and outer, shows the usage of those times.
Great sentence: “He could not leave himself reason to blame their deaths on his own failure.” Captures his love for his friends and his own sense of inadequacy.
The idea (I think) is to paint as vivid and immediately visionable a word movie as possible, and with that in mind, I timidly offer this one suggestion, with awareness that I may be all wet:
Ninth paragraph: for “stood up the burning lantern . . .”, how about “righted the still-burning lantern . . .”?
I envy you the trip, the jacuzzi, *and* the pina colada — continued happy writing!
Thanks John!
How about instead of “stood up”, or “righted” i just say lifted. Because he indeed does take it with him through the scene, and the “toppled” should capture the idea that it is on its side.
I’m glad it reads as a former time, because it is.
Thanks for the feedback. I felt this scene slid more into horror than I’ve ever done before, but it was fun to write and I think it captures the feelings of the character. It is always nice to see the ball is rolling again on my work!
James you’re absolutely right, “lifted”, because as you say he carried it with him from there.
Sounds like your earlier hesitation, your trip, and some well-timed diversion and then working, may have all worked together and paid off handsomely!
This is very well written, James. I can’t find much to criticize. I love the way you describe certain things: a strange silence had strangled all sound, he swallowed a dryness that stuck in his throat. . .I don’t know why, but I loved the line “his body was tense, shaking horribly.” Adverbs get a lot of negative publicity, but sometimes they add just the right touch.
Only one thing threw me a bit. You said, “When the unbreakable silence was shattered” which, to me, sounds a bit contradicting. Or maybe I’m being trivial. Probably I’m being trivial.
Thank you.
Adverbs do seem to get negative publicity. I think, honestly, the thought that adverbs are “bad” is a rather novice idea. A lot of writers out there seem to think they have to cut all or as many possible. I wholly disagree. Only cut unnecessary adverbs.
He walked slowly down the stairs. – No. Walked slowly is rather poor, find a different verb.
He crept slowly down the stairs – No. crept already implies slowly.
He crept anxiously down stairs. – Yes. Now we know that he is going slowly, quietly down the stairs, but, additionally, we have emphasized an emotional characteristic to the step. I would hate to live without adverbs. Adverbs, used in this way, can tie a characters emotions to his actions.
I’m not sure on the unbreakable silence bit. It is contradicting, but I found that the “unbreakable silence” of the night was only seemingly unbreakable. The reader understands, I would think, that the silence is still breakable.
Unbroken may be a better word choice. Thanks for the suggestion.
I am so impress wonderful
Thanks Jacqueline
Hey guys. I’m new to the whole write practice thing, so here’s to my first (crappy) practice post!
—-
I wake up for what must be the billionth time this night alone. With every new hour I wake, I find myself even more exhausted. The nightmare I call “life” has leaked it’s way into my unconsciousness. Who is it that’s after me? Somebody is after me. I just don’t know who. Who could it be?
I could try to sink back to rest- that is if I could find rest. Or I could have this all ended now. It wouldn’t take much. I could just stop running. It wouldn’t take them, whoever they are, long to find me. I could end this myself, even. I’m sure there’s something around here I could use. It wouldn’t take much. It could all be over right now.
I lay my head back down, contemplating.
Not crappy at all. I like the way the nightmare of the character’s life has leaked into his dream-life. The knowledge that someone is after him, but he doesn’t know who, makes for powerful suspense.
The sense that it would be so easy, even such a relief, to just end it in one way or another, is a feeling many readers can identify with. I hope for the character’s sake, and also for your story’s sake, that he finds the resilience and the way to continue.
You have the makings of a really good story here. I hope you’ll keep writing!
(My apologies for not responding earlier, when I said I was looking for your practice — something came up. But better late than never, I hope!.)
Liked this post. What do I do when I don’t want to write. We duke it out.
I start writing the words, “I don’t want to write, I don’t know what to write…” whatever I’m feeling. And the writing opens the iron doors of my mind and out flow the words.
That usually works for me. Because I have to write. It’s like breathing, and I’ve never been good at holding my breath.
write! Let your emotions flow out each pen flowing, do not keep them in your heart
love the comment of how our characters don’t want to face there conflict. I do heaps of procrastinating any thing other than writing. Wanting to write but, can’t get the story right. I go for a walk and think
Productive thinking usually doesn’t happen until I put pencil to paper.